


God Is A Flyers Fan

by NeverGoodbye



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Fate, Flyers, Playoffs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-10
Updated: 2010-06-10
Packaged: 2017-10-10 01:31:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/93747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverGoodbye/pseuds/NeverGoodbye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"D'ja ever think maybe He just likes hockey games? Throws an extra bounce here or lifts a stick there… just to make things more interesting?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	God Is A Flyers Fan

“Don’t ya feel bad doing it, Lou?” The younger figure asked as the older one settled down lithely next to him on the rafters. Twenty feet below, there was the whooping and hollering of victory, gloves flying and teammates screaming. One team at least was celebrating.

“Feel bad? What kind a…. Tony, you ain’t been around long enough to know what you’re talkin’ about.” The older one settled down next to him and smoothed out a couple feathers that had gotten bent on a bar of the scaffolding.

"I’m just saying,” Tony said. “Look at ‘em down there. They’re so sad, moping into their gloves, heads resting on their sticks…”

“Someone always gotta lose,” Lou said. The words came out muffled from the cigarette he had clamped between his lips. He lit it, inhaled and let the smoke filter up toward the ceiling right above them.  “Besides, when the Big Man says so, you just do it. No questions, no comments. You just do.”

Tony was reminded of earlier in the year when they were perched on the massive lit scoreboard of the Super Bowl dome. How the screaming fans underneath them had signs that proclaimed ‘THAT'S HOW WE DO!’ and wondered if the idiom was some of Lou’s southern heritage shining through still.

“Why, if He said to pick up the capt'n by his skate laces and flip ‘em round upside-down a couple times, I’d a done it. Damn, Tony, lifting up a goalie pad two inches ain’t nothing.”

Tony grimaced and looked down again. There were the obligatory handshakes, the presentation of trophies, the swarm of media on both sides of the ice (though neither had much to say for the cameras - it was a moment when words alone just don't do). And when it was all through, there was the slow, sad filing of the orange and the black off the arena ice and down into the locker room.

It didn’t seem quite right, and it sure didn't seem fair. For all the fight - the skill and the heart - the Flyers had shown, for them to come up empty after all. Why, the Boss himself had seen to it that a bounce or three went their way in previous games. Of course, Tony admitted, He had once or twice for the ‘Hawks too. Nothing they'd done was bigger than this, though, and as Tony watched, he just didn’t understand it.

“D’ja ever think maybe He just likes hockey games? Throws an extra bounce here or lifts a stick there… just to make things more interesting?” No, Tony hadn’t thought of that, actually. “Puts on a good show for his audience, maybe. Or, someone has a special lesson to learn from it. Who knows? No one 'cept the Man himself, that's for damn sure.”  Lou finished his cigarette and flicked it out into the air where it dissipated as surely as the smoke had a moment before.

Tony shrugged. Lou was probably right; he had been around decades longer than Tony had been and knew these ropes better than he. “You wanna go check out one of the after-parties? Think we got time?”

"Time!" Lou laughed. "Time is all we got, buddy."

They drifted out over the parking lot and watched the droves of people filtering out to their cars, their other lives, whatever lay beyond the scope of the night’s game. By the back entrance, there was a small crowd of fans gathered waiting and hoping for a glimpse of their heroes. They caught Tony’s attention and he tipped his head, motioning for the two of them to go check out the group.

 At the very front was a woman, mid-twenties, her light brown hair pulled into a ponytail adorned with orange and black ribbons. She was clutching a jersey in her hands; the fabric pressed tight into creases from her grasp. When a couple players emerged she yelped in happiness and waved the jersey. The two men half-smiled and waved at the assembled fans. This woman proffered the jersey out in front of her like an offering and had the sweetest, most innocent joy written on her face. The younger of the two men looked on, smiled patiently and took a step toward the crowd. He walked over to the chains where the people stood and took the jersey from her.

“What’s your name?” He asked her, smiling, a deliberately slow sprawl of words that made her grin widen and her knees shake.

“Sophie,” The woman answered breathlessly. “I’m your biggest fan.”Cliché, true, but she could hardly care less in that moment. Her eyes were huge and adoring as he slid the black marker along the sleeve, etching his signature and his number onto the fabric and into her heart.

He chuckled a thank you, smiled again, and shook her hand as he returned the jersey. And that was it. From his perch above them suddenly everything became clear. Tony’s jaw gaped as time slowed down and he watched the handshake, the tender exchange, the exquisite happiness written plainly on her face. That handshake, that indelible mark in time symbolized so much more than the small, kind gesture it appeared to be.

For one thing, Tony felt as if he could see this woman’s life stretching out before him. In a year she would be getting married; in two, she would have a little boy; in five, she would move north after receiving a fantastic job offer. Her son would play hockey too – backyard at first, a result of his mother’s fervor. But he would have talent, spades of it actually. And he’d play on traveling leagues and in college and get drafted into the minors, but he wouldn’t stay long there. The kid would be good, no, he would be great.

And that there’s the kicker, Tony thought. This kid, he’d play for the Flyers and lead them to championships; he’d raise the Cup back to back to back, history the likes of which this city hasn’t seen in decades. He’d be likened to the Great One, christened the Quick One, and be immortalized in the annals of sports history for all of mortal life. And to think, he would be named after this Mike, this captain that his mother had met outside an arena after the goal that devastated a city.

Below them, still in a whirl of delirious joy, Sophie started wandering toward her car accompanied by one of the men who had waited by the gate with her. They were chattering giddily over one another and eventually she gave him a scrap of paper with her phone number on it. Young love flourishing in the midst of tragedy.

“What a funny thing fate is,” Tony remarked to his comrade.

“No such thing,” Lou calmly responded, fishing another cigarette out from the fold of his robe. “There is just what the Man says there is, and there ain’t what he doesn’t.”

Tony nodded and soon enough they were coasting along to the next place and time they were needed. But the woman and her life ahead stayed with him: The look in her eyes and the little card with sprawled digits – the symbol of a man’s destiny that was yet to unfold.  It would only take another twenty years. Forever in the minds of these sports fans, but the blink of an eye to the Man above.

Could anyone say that this series of events wouldn’t have unfolded if that goal hadn’t been scored?  There’s no way to know, one way or the other.  But the fact of the matter remains that it was, and they did. Such was the stuff of dreams and fairytales, but for this crowd in Philly, and a special fan above, it was a blessing in a clever disguise. It was the beginning of a fantastic new era.


End file.
